


Dust

by vega_voices



Category: Law and Order: SVU
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-03
Updated: 2009-12-03
Packaged: 2017-10-19 19:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/204248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vega_voices/pseuds/vega_voices
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>They walked, letting the dust and the dusk fall over them.  They walked past closed shops and closed stores and blown out windows covered with tag board and pictures of the missing and the dead and posters crying </i>Have you seen me?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dust

_**Fic Post: Law and Order: SVU - Dust**_  
 **Title:** Dust  
 **Author:** [](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/profile)[**vegawriters**](http://vegawriters.livejournal.com/)  
 **Fandom:** Law and Order: SVU  
 **Pairing:** Alex/Olivia  
 **Rating:** General  
 **A/N:** This is part of the one-shot collection I have that gives background for Alex and Olivia’s relationship. The two others include [Survival](http://community.livejournal.com/vega_voices/19971.html) and [Of Lovers and Angels](http://community.livejournal.com/vega_voices/22879.html). This one takes us all the way back to the very beginning.  
 **Disclaimer:** If Law and Order BELONGED to me, you think I’d be writing fic? So no. Dick Wolf and his crew own it all, I am just taking Elliot, Olivia, Fin, and others, out to play. Now, if Mr. Wolf is looking for someone to write his L &O novel tie-ins … I’m totally there. Just sayin.

 **Summary:** _They walked, letting the dust and the dusk fall over them. They walked past closed shops and closed stores and blown out windows covered with tag board and pictures of the missing and the dead and posters crying_ Have you seen me?

 _It was so sudden.  
A stroke of sky.  
A few impending clouds  
where windows and doors,  
where corridors had been. And people.  
All those unfinished stories,  
suddenly finished. So sundered  
they spire up in us  
when we least expect it.  
From: A Stroke of Sky (Tess Gallagher)_

She was tired of going to funerals. Tired of memorial services and calling an extension to find a new voice on the other end. Tired of dust in the air and flags at half mast and how Broadway was still only half-lit. She was tired of a world that refused to let New York mourn on its own. She was tired of white roses and chain link fences and armed National Guard troops standing on corners. She was just tired.

All of New York was tired.

Olivia paused and knelt at the fence, laying her own white rose before a pile of rubble. Two weeks in and the smell of bodies was finally starting to fade. Her fellow cops worked extraction teams – she herself had volunteered for three of the overnight shifts, standing in coveralls under high beam lights, digging through dust and rocks and praying that she wouldn’t find anything. On her first hour, she’d unearthed the body of a friend from the academy. On her second, a date she’d once blown off for a case.

She finally understood the need for revenge.

“Funny, I didn’t picture you as one of the people who came down here to lay flowers.”

Olivia turned and the dust in the light fell around the body that came with the clipped, rich voice. In the encroaching dusk, the light from the beams caught Alex’s blonde hair and made her pale skin seem nearly ghostlike. Dressed down in jeans with a slight rip in the knee and an NYPD sweatshirt, Alex Cabot looked smaller. But in the shadow of the rubble, everyone looked smaller. “I don’t like to,” Olivia spoke softly. “But I can’t stay away either.”

“Neither can I.” Alex placed her own rose at the edge of the fence. The two women turned together, staring back through the fence at the work below.

“More people are going to die.”

“Yes.”

“Kind of makes me question what I’m doing with my life.”

“Really?”

“I don’t know.” Olivia shrugged deeper into her jacket. “Do you want to go get some coffee?”

“Sure.”

They turned, walking away together, and Olivia felt lighter. Less alone. She glanced at Alex and the unshed tears behind her glasses and wanted to reach out and take her hand. Instead, she jammed her hands into her pockets and wished away the smell of dust and decomp. Together, they walked.

The coffee shop was full, but quiet. All of the city had been quiet the last two weeks. People walked together but to speak seemed so trite, so common. To speak was to disrespect the dead.

They ordered – coffee and brownies – and found a spot in the corner. Small table. Two small chairs. A room full of people still in shock. Scared to connect but needing connection. Olivia wondered how many law school friends Alex had lost as the towers tumbled. She ran her finger along the table top and left a mark in the dust. Alex mimicked her movement and the two parallel lines stared up at them. Olivia drew another line in the dust, perpendicular, and Alex did the same. For a second, she swore should heard Alex chuckle but it was a mistake. New Yorkers didn’t chuckle anymore. But when she looked up, there was a slight sparkle in Alex’s eyes.

“I had plans for that night,” Olivia whispered.

“Yeah?”

“I was going to take a risk. Ask someone out.”

“Really?”

“I was going to see how she felt about coffee and brownies and daylight walks in Central Park.”

“She?”

“Yeah.”

Alex took a long sip from her coffee cup and Olivia met her gaze. “I think,” Alex’s voice was soft, “she would have said that she loves coffee and brownies and jogging through the park on Sunday mornings.”

“She does?”

“Yes.”

Olivia felt her heart beat for the first time since she’d watched the planes fly into the towers. “Does she love music from the nineties and predictable books by popular authors?”

“Sometimes.”

“Does she mind dating someone who is married to her work?”

“Not in the least, because she is also married to her work.” The look in Alex’s eyes became a full smile.

“Does she want to go get some dinner?”

“Yes.” Alex stood and helped Olivia back into her coat.

They walked, letting the dust and the dusk fall over them. They walked past closed shops and closed stores and blown out windows covered with tag board and pictures of the missing and the dead and posters crying _Have you seen me?_ A silly question any other time in New York, a city where people ran to to disappear. Now, people noticed each other. Olivia stayed close to Alex, scared suddenly that she would disappear into the falling dust. She reached for Alex’s hand. Alex laced their fingers. Together, they walked, seeking an open restaurant. Fast food. A pizza parlor. Anything.

Chinese. Lights glittered through the dusty storefront. Inside, patrons buzzed. Yellow Christmas lights floated in paper lanterns. At the entrance sat two Buddha statues, their stone laps full to overflowing with donations. Alex and Olivia both stopped and dropped twenties onto the pile. Without discussing it, they ordered to go and stood, close together, waiting for the plastic back with the smiling face to be handed over. Olivia paid. Alex carried. They walked the rest of the blocks back to Olivia’s apartment. Inside, Olivia fished her best chopsticks out of her drawer and rinsed off the dust off of them and her plates while Alex settled on the couch, waiting.

They ate in silence, listening to the muted sounds of the city and the quiet crunch of their teeth in the food. Finally, Alex spoke. “A friend of mine in White Collar crimes called me crying yesterday.”

“Why?”

“She can’t prosecute half her caseload now. She wasn’t sure to be outraged or relieved and … she … she feels guilty for feeling torn.”

The statement hung between them. Among the innocent dead, how many criminals had been lost?

Suddenly, and simultaneously, they both started to laugh.

It was heretical and sacrilegious and they needed it. They needed the emotional release that didn’t lead to tears. They needed to giggle and tell beautiful stories about friends who had survived, not family they had lost. The dead would never forgive New York if it didn’t learn how to live again.

Olivia rose to her feet. “Wine?”

“With Chinese?”

“Trust me.” She pulled a bottle of Chardonnay from her rack. “When did you decide you wanted to be a lawyer?”

“God,” Alex stretched out on the couch. “From when I was little, really, but mostly that was because I like to argue. But it was the first time I got to go to the courtroom with my Uncle Bill that the dream became reality for me. I was hooked when I saw him preside over that courtroom.” She took a long sip of the wine Olivia handed back to her and waited until she’d reclaimed her seat on the floor. “What about you? Did you always want to be a cop?”

“I wanted to be a princess.”

“Really? A princess?”

Olivia couldn’t stop the smile that spread across her face. For the first time, ever, she’d caught the beautiful lawyer by surprise. “See,” she said softly, “Princesses were always taken care of and always loved and I wanted someone to care that way about me. Of course, I was ten at the time.”

“What about your parents?” Alex asked cautiously. It was clear she was worried about pushing too hard, too fast.

But Olivia simply shrugged and got up and wandered to her window, looking down at the dusty ghosts wandering the dusty city. The words were practiced and polished, but in telling them to Alex, the truth caught in her throat and tears threatened in her eyes. “My mother and I had a love-hate relationship. More love than hate. I used to think that if I was a princess, then a prince would come along and rescue me from the castle prison she’d built for me. If I was a princess, no one would hate me.”

“Olivia.” Alex’s intake of breath was familiar. Elliot’s own reaction to her childhood had been one Olivia had always dreamed of. Her knight in shining armor. Protecting her. But with Alex, she wanted to take back the words. She didn’t want her to know how weak she really was. “Olivia, what did your father do? Why wasn’t he there to protect you?”

“I don’t know who he is. He …” she took a breath. “One night in 1968, Serena Benson, my mother, was dragged into an alley and raped. Nine months later, she gave birth to me.”

“Olivia …”

But she shook her head. She didn’t want to hear the familiar pity and gentle compassion. Not from Alex. “I’ve accepted it. And my mother’s choices.” It was a lie.

And to her credit, Alex let her keep her pride. “So,” Alex came up behind her, invading her personal space but not yet touching. “When did you realize you wanted to be a cop?”

“I was thirteen. Some truancy cop chased me down during school hours. But instead of dragging me back to school, she sat down and talked to me like and adult and treated me like a person. It changed a lot of things for me.” Olivia took another sip of her wine.

The touch finally came. Alex’s light hand on her back, moving around her waist. They stood in silence for what felt to be hours, watching the muted twinkling of the city, sipping their wine until it was gone. “Everything changed,” Olivia whispered. “And no one understands.” She wasn’t sure if she was talking about herself or the city or the woman next to her. She didn’t have time to rationalize away her fears and hesitations.

Alex turned and tilted her head and softly kissed her.


End file.
